Yamani Ouster Clouds Oil Picture

The pudgy, bearded face became a symbol of soaring oil prices and long lines of angry motorists waiting to buy gasoline.

Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani was the chief architect of the 1973 oil embargo that enabled OPEC to manipulate petroleum supplies and radically change the world economy.

Now, Yamani is out of a job, fired from his post as Saudi Arabia`s oil minister by King Fahd. He is still the most familiar name and face in Middle East oil machinations. In the eyes of the Saudi royal family, however, he apparently had become a different kind of symbol, one representing the chaotic conditions that created the lingering oil glut and the plunge in prices that came with it.

The departure of Yamani adds one more element of uncertainty to OPEC`s thus far futile efforts to come up with a production formula that will restore big oil profits.

The sheik served as Saudi oil minister for 25 years. He pulled the strings that turned OPEC into a cohesive cartel that, for more than a decade, made the most industrialized nations dance to an expensive tune. Yamani may be gone, but his impact on a world dependent on petroleum will not be forgotten.